blog

Goal Setting

Sun, 20 May 2012 08:17:56 +0100

'My idea of paradise is a straight line to a goal’ - Friedrich Nietzsche

Every successful person whether that be an artist, sports person or leader has set goals which have driven and directed their efforts in their quest to be the best they can be. Goal setting is an extremely powerful technique for enhancing performance so it is one of the most important strategies you can implement for success in any environment. Goal setting helps to focus attention and it is critical to maintain and enhance motivation. Goal setting gives direction both in the short term and the long term and you can see success as you achieve your short term goals. This increases your confidence as you are being success and achieving. So if you don’t set goals you must start today. However goal setting must be implemented correctly.

How does Goal Setting Work?

1. Goals direct attention to tasks at hand and highlights what needs to be completed. It allows you to implement strategies to develop specific elements of the business that need to be utilise to complete the goal.

2. Goals mobilise your efforts. You will put your efforts into moving towards the goal as you are provided with the incentive of completing the goal.

3. Goals prolong your persistence because you are rewarded with incentives as you achieve your goals. People who set goals stick at tasks for longer as they are achieving smaller goals that combined form larger goals.

4. Goals foster the development of new learning strategies. In order achieve the goals you may need to develop new strategies to complete the task at hand.

Types of Goal

There are 3 types of goal that a team leader needs to be aware of.

1. Outcome – This is the end result. For example getting the order ready for dispatch by designated time.
2. Process – This is the actions needed to execute the goal correctly.
3. Performance – These are the standards independent of other variables.

How do the types of goals fit together?

Process + Performance = Outcome

Key Principles of Goal Setting

If you follow these key principles you can give yourself a powerful tool to use to drive success.

1. Specific – To really focus your attention make your goals specific. Specific to you and specific to the goal and avoid vague and broad goals like ‘I want the team to be the best’. Being specific makes your goals objective which gives you something to aim for and aspire to. Give yourself a completion date, a deadline to complete the goal by and a specific number of words to read from the end of year report.

2. Realistic and Challenging – Goals should be difficult enough to be challenge but not so difficult they become unrealistic. This provides you with a challenge.

3. Long Term and Short Term – See your long term goal as the top of the mountain to get to the top you need to set and achieve smaller goals to reach the top. Achieving these smaller goals maintains motivation and attention. Remember:‘Every journey starts with a single step’

4. ‘Ink it, don’t think it’ – Make sure you write your goals down. This cannot be underestimated. The action of doing this reinforces your intent to complete the goal. It becomes a sort of contract that you feel obliged and committed to complete it. Write them do and put the goals on the wall. Again every time you see them you further reinforce your commitment to the goal. Also by writing them down you will not forget any goal and you get the satisfaction of ticking or crossing them off you have achieved them. Recording them also allows you to chart your progress towards your long term goals and evaluate them. Writing your goals down also allows you to constantly re-evaluate your goals. Do you need to re-assess and modify your goals?

‘When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps’ - Confucius

5. Process, Performance and Outcome – We have seen the different types of goal and how they fit together. If you set primarily process and performance goals then you have done all you can within your control to achieve the outcome goal. Doing this more times than not the outcome takes care of itself. Using this equation also harbours the right environment.

6. Consider the goal after the goal – What this means is that you need to be aware of the next step. Nothing stands still. By being aware of the next goal you are automatically bring the goal closer to completion as you are thinking of the next one. A great example of this is students progressing to university from college. Their goal is to get to university and they don’t have a goal after this so they lose focus and attention and as a result drop out at the end of the first year.
*Taken from Weinberg and Gould (2003) 3rd Edition.

The Importance of becoming child like in our approach to Success and Winning

Sun, 13 May 2012 07:35:25 +0100

I found this passage from George Leonard in a book on Informal Learning by Jay Cross. It has got significant importance to sport and business psychology.

Leonard said:

1. Stay open to possibilities. The world is feeding you opportunities all the time. Keep your eyes open and you will see them.

2. You need instruction to get the basics, but after that, watch closely and see what works. Don't try to change everything at once - that doesn't work.

3. Learn from accidents. Learn from mistakes, capitalise on them and celebrate the unexpected.

So, Leonard's 1st point suggest that we should live in the moment. The best examples of these are children. We should become child like in our approach and immerse ourselves in our environment living in the present. A child like state will allow us to see these opportunities and then use them to our advantage. To get into this state we have to let go of the past; forget it it's gone; recover and learn from any 'school boy errors' and let these go. Take the learning forward and use this in the present. Use imagery here. If you notice yourself dwelling on the past in a game or competition. Stop take 3 big belly breaths and visualise yourself pushing the past out of your mind so you have empty mind, then visualise a barrier there to stop anything else from entering.To be in the present we need to trust our training we have given our bodies and mind. Everything we have done allows us function on the present and get the desired results.

Similarly don't focus on the 'What if' and the future. The way you can have an influence on the future is if you control the now so get in the present and become child like. The future will take care of itself.

Leonard's 2nd point indicates the need to become fundamentally sound in the skills that are needed to be successful. This will allow us to have strong foundation which we can trust in competition. Get as much information as you can on the environment, learn from mentors, coaches and past experiences. Have the confidence, once you have this foundation is to experiment (like a child) on different strategies to improve performance and thus success.

The final point is key. As creatures our learning strategy is to learn form our mistakes (more on this later!). It is how we improve. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. This goes back to the 1st point of living in the present. Mistakes are part of life but it is how we learn from these and then use this learning that makes winners and success.

Extend your Comfort Zone

Fri, 11 May 2012 19:49:48 +0100

It has been said that we all live in the same wind and it is how we deploy our sails that separates successful people who reach PINNACLE PERFORMANCE from everyone else. What this means from a sport psychology perspective is that everyone is faced with the same external environment and it's how you manage and use the tools you have been given (Control the Controllables again!) to get the most out of the wind and the environment to be successful. This links to 2 of my favourite quotes. The first is by William Shedd who said:

'A ship is safe in harbour, but that's not what ships are for.'

If we are all in the same wind, then its quite safe to stay in the harbour and not push yourself and face this wind. This is all well and good if you want an easy existence but to be successful you have to leave the safety of the harbour and push yourself to seek out and find new experiences to push and extend your comfort zone. Doing this will ensure you identify your strengths and weaknesses and provide strategies for what you need to do and work on to be successful. The further away from the harbou ryou get the more you learn about your ship. The more you learn the more knowledge you have and with this knowledge you will be able to use this in your journey. The second of my favourite quotes is from the the final 2 lines of the Invictus poem:

'I am the master of my fate; I am the Captain of my soul'

So we are the captains so we chose the course, speed and direction of our journey. As captain you can stay in the harbour and be safe or you can leave the harbour and push on to test yourself in open waters, gaining experience which leads to knowledge that you can use further in your journey to reach PINNACLE PERFORMANCE. As captain you chose...but the the captains that are most succesful are the ones who leave the harbour.

The Psychology of Football - Playing to Win as Opposed to Playing not to Lose

Mon, 07 May 2012 08:04:46 +0100

On the final day of League 1 11/12 football season 2 teams are fighting for promotion to the Championship. To compound matters the 2 teams are city rivals, members of the Steel city, Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United. The Owls versus the Blades, the Blues versus the Reds. On the penulitmate round of fixtures Sheffield United were in the driving seat but a disappointing draw at home and an away win for Sheffield Wednesday switched the positions and put the Owls on top. Today sees both teams playing against already relegated teams with nothing but pride to play for. Both Sheffield football teams, on the other hand, have everything to play for. This raises some interesting issues from a sport psychology perspective of football. Both teams have to get a result. This will increase the pressure on the teams. Both teams need to remain focused on Controlling the Conrollables. This means taking care of business in their respective games. Concentrating on the simple things that the players can control that collectively will get the desired result at the end of the 90 minutes of football. They have to go out and just play football, just like they used to do as children in the park, playing without thinking. Both Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United need to go out and play to win as opposed to playing not to lose. There is a difference. Playing not to lose against teams that playing just for pride could be a disaster just as much as a disaster if one of the teams plays with a focus on things they can't control. Playing to win, on the other hand, will see teams concentrating on the things needed to win the game, attacking their opponents and stopping them from playing. The team that can best control the controllabes and play to win will be the winner come 5 O'clock this evening.

The Importance of Discipline on Reaching PINNACLE PERFORMANCE

Fri, 11 May 2012 19:44:36 +0100

A couple of things have combined for inspiration for this blog. The first of these was a spiders web in my garden that I saw as I was going to my car one morning. The second is the book The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck. The spiders web reminded me of the story of the king and the spider. The king was outlawed by an opposing king and was close to defeat. In his hiding place he witnessed a small spider repeatedly try and fail to spin a web. The spider eventually completed his web and the king took great strength from watching this and the rest as they say is history! This links to The Road Less Travelled. In his book Peck suggests that life is hard and when you realise this it doesn't matter that this no longer matters. To achieve this you need to be disciplined (which is a key skill needed to achieve PINNACLE PERFORMANCE). Peck suggested ways to become disciplined:

Delay Gratification
Accept Responsibility
Dedication to Truth
Balance

To reach PINNACLE PERFORMANCE is difficult and you need to work hard to achieve it. This takes discipline and to do this you need to delay gratification. Our modern way of life makes gratification easy and quick, usually at the click of a mouse (Have you ever spent to much time on Facebook or Twitter?). Do the hard things and do these things repeatedly to build solid foundations and when you have done this gratification will come and will be greatly enhanced by the pain of doing the hard hours in the gym or on the training field. Life was hard for the spider but he persisted and worked until he completed the task at hand and received gratification in the knowledge that he had produced a web.

To reach PINNACLE PERFORMANCE you also need to accept responsibility. Peck (1990, p.32) suggested 'You cannot solve life's problems except by solving them'. So take responsibility for your actions and your training and do all that is required to be successful, it goes back to Control the Controllables. After you have done this you must accept the truth which is that it is tough to reach PINNACLE PERFORMANCE and you have to constantly work at it. Just like the spider in the cave. He knew and accepted that he had to solve the problem of making the web and it was this that was in his control so he went out to work and didn't stop until it was completed.

Finally you need to maintain balance (There will be additional blogs on this important topic in the coming weeks) and as Peck (1990, p.66) highlighted 'discipline itself must be disciplined'. This means that you have to work to be balanced in all aspects of life to develop as an athlete or business person and in life. Have the ability to delay gratification but have fun while you are doing it. The spider was born to spin webs and so he was having fun in doing what he was designed to do and was balanced to know that he could have more fun when the web was complete. Make sure you are balanced and have fun in what you do.

The Mental side of the Boat Race 2012

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 09:21:31 +0100

The 158th Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race will be remembered for a lot of things, the distressing scenes at the finishing line when the Bowman of the Oxford crew colapsed, the broken oar that resulted in Cambridge racing away to win and the cause of the broken oar, the enforced restart caused by a swimmer apparently protesting about elitism. These are all additional considerations to respond to and focus on for the rowers as well as the gruelling course on the Thames which is the pinnacle of months of exhausting training (6 hours per day, 6 days a week for 6 months). However it demonstrated some important aspects of sport psychology and the mental side of sport.

Starting with the training and preparation for the race. Both crews set a long term outcome goal to win the race but throughout the training will have set smaller manageable goals that focused on the process and performance of elements of the race. These goals would have been set for every hour for every one of the training sessions. Breaking down the gruelling event into small steps of improvement (it's a long journey to PINNACLE PERFORMANCE). This training shows the drive, dedication and commitment needed for PINNACLE PERFORMANCE and the importance of goal setting in the journey to reach the top.

It also shows how important the link between motivation and goal setting is. The drive to achieve the goal was the motive behind the amount of time needed to prepare for the race. This goal and desire of winning was exemplified by Cambridge who had a picture of Oxford's winning crew from the previous years boat race to reinforce this desire achieve the goal to prevent the feelings they experienced the previous year.

Finally the unexpected events highlighted the importance of focus and the need to focus solely on 'Control the Controllables'. Each crew had to focus on what was in their control and disregard what was not. The 'swimmer' and the enforced restart was the same for both crews. Crews needed to focus on the controllables and revert back to their training to maintain the mental racing zone they had been in. The restart and the broken oar was outside Oxford's control and they had to focus on what was in their control and finish the race. Individual crew memebers would have also had to focus on the things within their control during the unforeseen events after the race had finished. Thankfully the Oxford boat appears to be OK (pushing his body to the extreme) but at the time the others rowers had to control their emotions, actions and their their response to winning/losing and the restart on hold.

Whatever peoples views on the boat race the 158th Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race highlighted the importance of the mental side of any sporting event.

Stepping Up – The Future

Mon, 23 May 2011 10:52:39 +0100

Making the step up from 1 level of sport to the next is a big concern for many young sport stars. Your long term future and destination is something that you need to be aware off. The issues/problems youare and going to face are no different to problems faced by players your age at any level. The transition from U19 football to paid men’s football is often seen as a difficult time in young players’ career because you have gone from playing with your peers who are all similar age group to playing in sides that have contain players with a range of ages.

In 6 months time you could be in this situation but what you need to realise is that is can be done and the problems faced by you are no different from the issues faced by players from the top level to any other level. Players do step up and there are some examples. The best one is the Manchester United youth of 1992. This team contained players such as Ryan Giggs, David Beckham, Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, Ben Thornley, Chris Casper and Keith Gillespie. A large portion (five) of this team went on to be very successful and went on to win the clubs 2^nd double in 3 years with Alan Hansen famously declaring "You can't win anything with kids". So it can be done! There are numerous other examples.

Teams in this league will be the next step up but you have in abundance the things listed below, with the most important being ‘Don’t give up’ so you will have to work hard and wait for your opportunity. Getting paid for doing something that you enjoy is something that most people would love to have the opportunity to do. From here it is still possible to get the opportunity to play league football. Examples of players that have done include Freddy Eastwood and Ian Wright, both were playing non league for many years before being snapped up by league clubs.

What’s needed to step up?

Don’t give up – If at first you don’t succeed try try and try again! This goes from the small the major. For example chase down balls – people will notice and could work in your favour.
Hard work – Work hard in training and games. Be the first into training and the last out, coaches love hard workers. Tommy Spurr from Sheffield Wednesday is a great example.
Believe – Believe in yourself and your ability. This confidence will could give you the edge in trials, games etc

Luck – Sometimes you have to be in the right place at the right time. For example a club might be financially struggling so might need to give younger players a shot.

Confidence – An Essential Ingredient to Success

Mon, 23 May 2011 10:47:15 +0100

Confidence is arguably the most essential ingredient to success. Confidence is in ones ability and skills are paramount in order to survive and be successful in any performance domain. Look at Kobe Byrant (LA Lakers basketball player) and Lebron James as two great examples. Both players demand the ball when the game is on the line because they have complete confidence in their ability to make that shot and win the game. Their team mates also have confidence in them that they can make the shot. Sometimes, well most of the time they make it but when they don’t they know that they will make it next time. Other examples from other performance domains include business entrepaneurs who have the confidence in themselves and their business that they become a success, and the explorer who has the confidence in their ability to reach their objective.

“Man becomes what he believes himself to be” – Mahatma Ghandi.

Confidence should be the difference between winning and losing even if all the other factors in the sporting environment remain constant (Sellars, 2002).

Confidence can be a difficult thing to develop as people consider it to be an innate quality but it can be improved.

I like to use the analogy of a ‘confidence bank’ whereby the athlete can see what they are doing is improving their confidence. Like a normal bank account you want to put more in than you take out. There are some things that can be done. Being fully prepared is a good place to start. This can be done by developing a pre-match routine and utilising goal setting techniques.

Pre-match routines focus attention and allow the athlete the chance to ensure everything is in place for successful competition. Physical, psychological, technical and tactical aspects need to be built into the routine. Also equipment checks need to be built in. For example a swimmer must make sure they have their goggles! Every detail needs to be noted down and time allocated, for example when to pack you kit bag = 48 hours before the date of competition. A routine will allow the athlete to put into the confidence bank.

Also goal setting is another important concept that can allow athletes to put into their confidence bank. By being successful confidence is increased (Sellars, 2002) so the more goals that are achieved the more confidence can be put into the bank. However, these goals must by challenging and follow the SMARTER principle whilst focusing on processes (The athlete can control these and so have full opportunity to achieve them. Outcomes on the other hand, the athlete has little or no control over them). Coaches have an important role to play as they must give feedback on the achievement of goals.

Another intervention that helps with the confidence bank is imagery. Visualising important aspects of your sport on a regular bas is will give the athlete more opportunity to practice that aspect for example a basketball could go to the gym and physically shoot 500 jump shots and after practice go to a quiet place and visualise another 500 jump shots, that’s a 1000 jump shots instead of the 500 that they would have done without imagery. By being successful with your images (a key aspect of imagery – your not going to image being unsuccessful at something). You can make a payment to the confidence bank as success breeds confidence.

Athletes always talk to themselves and structuring this talk in a way that protects positivity and success will increase confidence. Self-talk, as it is known, will reinforce positive aspects of the athlete whilst reducing and removing the negative voices that sometimes creep into athletes minds. Self-talk can be task related or emotion related (Sellars, 2002) and examples include “My training has been good. Lets put it into action.”

Another simple way to increase confidence is to focus on what the athlete is good at or can do well, to concentrate on your strengths, doing this you are putting into the bank and remaining positive.

A way to highlight strengths is to perform performance profiling. This will highlight to the athlete what their strengths are.